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César Chávez

Part of the “On
My Own Biography” series, César Chávez
is a poorly conceptualized and abysmally written attempt to describe the life
and organizing work of a humble, courageous man.

“Everyone in the
Chávez family worked on their farm. César’s father planted seeds in the dirt.
He hoed away the weeds. He dug ditches to bring water from the river to the
farm. Without water, the crops could not grow. César and Richard fed the
horses, cows, and chickens. They gathered eggs. Rita washed clothes by hand.
Juana made tortillas from ground corn. Their
family was poor. But Juana still invited homeless people to eat with them.
No one should go hungry, she believed. César’s aunts, uncles, and cousins lived
nearby. Sometimes they came to the Chávez farm for fiestas. Everyone ate a lot of good food. César
and his cousins swam in the ditches. They rode horses and climbed trees. It was a good life.” (Italics mine.)

Even during the
Great Depression, until the droughts that impoverished thousands of farm
families and forced them to migrate west, the Chávez family “still had lots of
milk, eggs, and vegetables. They had enough to sell and enough to eat.”

In case anyone
missed the absurdity of this narrative so far, I’ll summarize: The Chávez
family was poor, yet they ate well and had a good life. Here, the author
apparently confuses the concept of hard work with poverty.

Then there’s
Wadsworth’s description of the problem with agricultural pesticides:

“Sometimes the
fields smelled of pesticides. The farmers sprayed pesticides to kill insects
that might eat the plants. Some of
these pesticides made the workers sick.” (Italics mine.)

In fact,
agricultural pesticides contain known carcinogens; farm worker children living
in agricultural areas are among the most vulnerable to birth defects,
neurological complications, respiratory illness, and cancers; and farm workers
have been struggling for nearly 20 years against the use of dangerous
pesticides in the fields. Wadsworth’s use of the words “sometimes” and “some”
minimizes a tremendous problem. There’s more:

When
they needed food, César’s parents shopped in the nearest town. Signs over some
stores said White Trade Only. César’s family was Mexican. They could not shop
at those stores. César missed Arizona. He wanted to ride a horse. He wanted to
climb a tree.

No joke. It
really says that. In her description of racism as just another inconvenient
fact of life, the author simplifies and downplays the enormity of a problem
that confronts many, many children in all areas of the country.

In her
description of the beginnings of Chévez’ organizing the farm worker struggle,
Wadsworth writes:

Many
people thought that César would fail. Rich families or big companies owned most
farms. César was poor. He had dark skin. And he was only a farmworker, one of
thousands.

This section
could have easily been written to show what was to occur in a way that would have
had young children empathizing with this courageous organizer. Try this:

Many people thought that César would
fail. Rich families or big companies owned most farms. They thought that
because César was poor, he had dark skin, and he was only one of thousands of
farmworkers, he didn’t stand a chance. They were wrong.

Children, even
very young children, have the propensity to understand complex issues, such as
poverty, horrible working conditions, and racism. Indeed, many young children
have to deal with these issues in their lives. It’s all in the way the issues
are presented, and gifted teachers and writers know this. We can either let
children know that they’re capable of changing the world, or we can teach them
to be helpless, to accept the status quo. César
Chávez is not recommended.